The EMGO+ institute has a number of institute specific resources that strongly facilitate scientific integrity and the quality of all phases of research, including study design, data collection, data analysis and reporting. It is clearly recognized that our role is to provide an environment that encourages good conduct in research and discourages misconduct, and to provide tools that maximize high quality research. However, as the institute directorate has no formal role in the governance of research personnel, the responsibility for actual behavior remains with the department heads.

In this annual report we present with pride and pleasure the core information about who we are, what we do, what we strive for, and what we have accomplished. You will find the information organized in a largely similar way as in 2015. This reflects the standardization and harmonization of the annual report cycle across all VU University / VU University Medical Center research institutes, using the new Standard Evaluation Protocol (SEP) 2015-2021 of the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU), the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) as the main guideline.

We hope you will enjoy reading this report!
Read the Annual Report 2016: download the pdf.

Personal information

Jenny van der Steen is an epidemiologist working in the field of care for nursing home residents with dementia, and in the field of palliative care. She is an Editor of Palliative Medicine, the highest ranking palliative journal.

As of April 1, 2016, she continued most of her research at Leiden University Medical Center, Department of Public Health and Primary Care. She continues to be involved in projects at the Department of Public and Occupational Health of the VU University Medical Center Amsterdam.

She is the lead author of the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) white paper on palliative care in dementia, developed on behalf of with a team of 12 people from 6 countries. It defines palliative care in 11 domains, optimal palliative care in 57 recommendations based on evidence and consensus, and is available as open access from the Palliative Medicine and EAPC websites.This hallmark paper conceptualizes palliative care in dementia. Web of Science “highly cited paper” (top 1% of its academic field and publication year.)

Her research includes nationwide observational and intervention studies in patients with dementia and pneumonia. These studies have resulted in a number of publications on methods to develop and evaluate guidelines, the practice of withholding curative treatment, prognostic models for mortality from nursing home-acquired pneumonia, distressing symptoms related to pneumonia, and reliability and validity of instruments, along with products for clinical practice: guidelines and mortality risk scores.

A 5-year prospective study on end of life with dementia (Dutch end of life with dementia study, DEOLD, "Zorg bij Dementie") assessed factors associated with decision making, treatments, patient suffering, and family satisfaction. Collaboration with similar projects in Israel, Italy, and Belgium results in recommendations in areas where care needs improvement. Other studies on end of life in nursing homes include studies on spirituality, an evaluation of a booklet for families on comfort care, and a study testing of specific instruments to assess end of life with dementia. She recently also started research on selective reporting in science more generally.

Main awards

2017 European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator grant ("awarded to outstanding researchers") https://erc.europa.eu/news/erc-2017-consolidator-grants-results

2017 - Chaired our symposium at the largest conference on gerontology and geriatrics ever (IAGG/GSA, San Francisco) which the organising committee assigned the status of a "presidential symposium"

Quality of our research

Welcome, you have reached the website of the EMGO⁺/Amsterdam Public Health research institute.

The EMGO+ research institute has fully merged its research activities into the Amsterdam Public Health research institute (APH), a multidisciplinary institute where researchers of Amsterdam UMC, VU Amsterdam and the University of Amsterdam unite.
Please visit the APH website for all the ongoing research activities and up to date information.
The EMGO⁺ website will remain accessible and our project and personal pages will remain hosted at the EMGO⁺ server until a full migration towards the
APH website has been realized, or until alternative applications for e.g. personal pages can be offered.
If you have any questions please e-mail to: amsterdampublichealth@vumc.nl

From now onwards all our EMGO⁺ activities are part of APH. At the same time we will in 2017 also complete all going concern within the EMGO⁺ Institute.Hence the EMGO⁺ website will remain accessible and our project EMGO⁺/APH database and personal pages will remain hosted at the EMGO⁺ server until a full migration towards the APH website has been materialized.